We have now heard, and read, all reactions: from the institutional to the knee-jerk types, from fawning in favour (few) to the damning and suspicious (many). That, in itself, is a sign of the times: anything the government comes up with is instantly regarded with suspicion.

The boffins, who produced the Mepa Reform Plan on the Prime Minister’s orders, came up, as boffins everywhere do, with four pillars. But they neglected one important, basic, preliminary step – telling us why the reform is in fact necessary and what the reform will be measured by.

Yes, why indeed is reform necessary? We all know it is a key government electoral commitment, but understanding why Dr Gonzi moved to take Mepa under his direct guidance and commit himself to the reform is crucial to understanding why it was deemed to be so essential, not just to the government’s re-election, but also to good governance.

This, as I said, is not spelt out anywhere in the reform document.

Let us widen the picture. Over the past years, let us say the past 40 years, Malta’s built-up area has developed and increased in leaps and bounds, far more than anything in the previous centuries of Malta’s existence.

As Malta fast became one vast conurbation, reaching without break from Mosta to Zabbar, from Valletta to Sliema, Malta’s character changed drastically. Its villages lost their identity, enveloped as they became into one big city. Its road network was not adequately addressed and its infrastructure even today staggers to keep up with development.

New areas come into being, mostly with the infrastructure coming in later. All this has meant stress – further stress on the national psyche, many times leading also to loss of time, money and opportunities. Certainly, it has added to the health problems already present in the population, targeting especially children, who are more prone to suffer from respiratory ailments.

But it has also led to the emergence of a new class of Maltese entrepreneurs – the developers. Not that they were completely absent before, of course.

As a class, the developers have progressed well. They now employ thousands with well-remunerated jobs, the latest technology that makes construction today unthinkable in the past. They have moved from just building to order, to become fully-fledged developers, taking up more and more projects from the conception stage to finishing and even more.

The sector, as a whole, has grown and grown. Moving from being there when needed, to construction as a raison d’être, they have to build, build and build.

Around the big developers, a real army of part-time developers has grown. To see them at close range is to remain impressed by their courage, entrepreneurial skills and know-how in so many different areas. Together with the owners of sites, properties and so on, they are Mepa’s real clients. Or rather, that is what they think unless this impression is corrected. Because Mepa’s real client is the nation. Not the developers, nor the owners. Not even those who would want to buy property.

And in a still wider circle, are all those ancillary businesses that depend on construction – the plasterers, tilers, plumbers, carpenters, lift installers, electricians, and so on. Unless there is construction, these may as well close down.

This huge construction behemoth goes on and on: it must go on; it has to. It has to be given more construction projects or else it will die. That is why even in these times of austerity and recession, when empty premises lie unsold, the behemoth still spews out apartment blocks, penthouses and shops. Building has become its main raison d’être.

Here is where regulation comes in. It is obvious that this whole industry must be regulated. Over the years there have been good and bad examples of regulation. PAPB began with very good intentions but ended up with huge stories of corruption and political gerrymandering being told about it.

The post-1987 PN administration changed PAPB into the Planning Authority, later Mepa. All through its long history, this body has been at the centre of controversy, with the government always getting the blame for whatever Mepa does, or even does not do. Environmentalists on the one hand rightly blame Mepa for allowing the uglification of Malta, for allowing blatant and not so blatant infringements of the rules, for the suspicion, many times confirmed, that Mepa is strong with the weak and weak with the strong.

On the other hand, those who, come election time, use the power of their votes to threaten that they will bring the government down, also have long lists of complaints against Mepa, but more on rejection decisions, on delays, on keeping to the virtuous side of the law. Come election time, an incumbent prime minister finds himself in a race against time to correct as many of the complaints as is humanly possible.

So what were the reasons that led Dr Gonzi to decide to take Mepa under his wing and to commit himself to a reform of the institution? And were these the right reasons? Only after having replied to these questions can one try and make sense of whether the proposed reform will put the clock back, whether it is giving politicians once again power over development permits and all the rest of the charges that have been flying around in the past days.

I am not at all sure it was prudent on the part of the Prime Minister to take on Mepa on top of his already heavy workload. Dr Gonzi has the unhappy habit of micro-managing, and, apart from the public perception that he took it away from George Pullicino because Mr Pullicino was not good at controlling it, Dr Gonzi has removed himself from being the last resort and has turned himself into the front bench of such a tricky body.

Then, not having enough time to really oversee its workings, he could do nothing better than commission a reform programme from the boffins at the Management Efficiency Unit and plug its launch as the government implementing its prime electoral commitment.

Many analyses of the proposals have been published. In particular, Michael Falzon, who as the man who set up the Planning Authority on the ruins of PAPB, and who thus has a paternal and almost proprietal interest in the original template, has been writing incessantly that this is a throwback to olden times, that the politician has taken over once again.

I find this rather difficult to believe. This power never left the politician’s hands. Take the correction of the development zones undertaken before the last election. That did not come from Mepa, but from a Cabinet directive. Take the enabling of any house in most areas, which can now have a basement, three storeys of flats and a penthouse on top –this was not a Mepa creation. Or which Mepa has ever stood up to government pressure and refused to sanction whatever the government wanted?

I do not believe that the proposed timetable for the approval of applications will be kept even if the so-called ‘chess clock’ system is replaced by any other system. I tend to agree with the critics that a full-time DCC will render what used to be a rather independent body into yet another Mepa branch. Even so, however, the scandals of the past months have shown that the DCC structure was too weak to withstand, let’s call them enterprising and persistent applicants.

I do not think that the proposals listed under Consistency title, for instance, can work. The problem with Mepa is that many times different boards see things in a different way and what one board throws out is acceptable to the other. And no money would have exchanged hands, whatever people think. They will always think money changes decisions, wouldn’t they?

Nor do I think that Enforcement will be beefed up with the creation of a new directorate. But I do think that if there was the same transparency there now is on applications also on enforcements, people will react far more to cases where enforcement has been lacking, in some cases, for years.

But mainly, what did Dr Gonzi expect from this reform, other than to implement a key commitment. The risk is that, some years down the line, even this reform, like the ones before it, would show its imperfections. The election will come. Again, a harried prime minister with his back to the wall will be made to bend over backwards and grant permits that had been left pending. And another Mepa reform will be on the cards.

One litmus test is to ask what a reformed Mepa would have avoided if the current batch of Mepa scandals is analysed.

Even so, and this is my most basic point, Mepa is not so much an issue as whether the construction behemoth is indeed sustainable for the country’s long term advantage. Whether it is in this country’s long-term interest that construction continues so full-blast as today. Whether even if enforcing all the ODZ regulations and the rest, the countryside, what remains of it anyway, will still be there in 20 years’ time.

This Mepa reform is a boffin’s dream world: that by arranging everything into four neat pillars all the problems of such a messy situation can be swept under the carpet and the real issues not faced properly. Mepa works, many times, and it is not the scarecrow people make it. Nor are its meetings covens of corruption. It is the country’s scapegoat that everyone blames without really knowing how it works. Tamper with it at your own risk.

Nor can this country lurch from reform to reform just because a bunch of people who see corruption everywhere and incite public opinion and scare it into deciding that this application or that permission MUST be corrupt. It’s like the people at a football stadium telling the ref it must be a goal because everyone says so.